The first signs of “Let The World Burn” taking off didn’t come in a neat, trackable way for Chris Grey. It showed up in bits and pieces. A random gym video, an anime edit, someone flipping the song into something that didn’t even feel like the original anymore. Within days, it had moved far beyond anything he could’ve planned, landing in corners of the internet he wasn’t aiming for in the first place.
That loss of control is something Grey seems comfortable with, mostly because of how controlled everything is on his end. His process starts alone, building ideas from scratch, shaping them layer by layer before anyone else hears them. He’s not jumping between ten people in a room or chasing quick outputs. It’s slower, more internal, and it shows in the way his music holds together.
Even when the songs get intense, nothing feels accidental. There’s emotion, but it’s held in place. The instinct is to push things as far as they can go, then step back and figure out what actually needs to stay. That balance between going overboard and pulling it back is what gives his records their weight without letting them fall apart.
Now, with more people finding his music through moments he didn’t manufacture, Grey isn’t trying to repeat the formula. If anything, he’s sticking to the same approach, letting the process lead instead of trying to keep up with where the internet takes things next.
Your music feels very intentional from a production standpoint. How much of that world are you building yourself?
Almost entirely. I produce most of my records alone, and even when I bring in collaborators, I’m still guiding the overall direction. I actually started out producing before I ever really focused on writing or singing, so that foundation is core to how I work. There’s something addictive about hearing a fully realized version of an idea that started in your head.
“Let The World Burn” really took off online and brought a lot of new listeners in. What did that moment show you about how people are discovering your music now?
I think it showed me how fast things can move in this current moment and how little control you actually have over where a song goes once it’s out. In the span of a week, it went from being another song in my catalog to one of the biggest songs in the world. It was definitely a whirlwind to catch up to that. It’s been cool to watch all the different communities that have embraced that song. One of my favourite things to watch was seeing how different communities made it their own and put the song in completely different worlds. Gym communities, anime, BookTok, Stranger Things edits, K-Pop edits, relationship videos, and car edits, just to name a few. It stops being your song at that point. I think all the covers were a big part of that, too. Hearing people reinterpret it in their own way made it feel bigger than just me.
Your music leans into darker, almost cinematic textures while still sitting in R&B and pop. Where did that instinct to build something that layered come from?
I’ve always been drawn to songs that feel like they evolve and escalate, and by the end, it’s almost overwhelming in a good way. Growing up on artists like Queen, Ozzy Osbourne, and Michael Jackson, there was always that sense of scale and drama in the production. I think I’m always chasing that. My process is usually to take things too far, stack too many elements, push it emotionally and then carve it back until it still feels big but focused.
Your songs carry a lot of emotional intensity, but the production is very controlled and precise. How do you balance those two sides when you’re making music?
I don’t really see them as separate. The production exists to serve the emotion of the song; if it’s not doing that, the song isn’t working. In that case, either I scrap it or I rework it. A good example is “Wrong.” The original demo had a four on the floor drum groove, and something just felt off. I didn’t immediately know why, but after sitting with it for most of a year, I went back in and shifted it to more of an R&B/trap groove. It completely changed how the emotion came across.
When your sound is this distinct early on, is there ever pressure to stick to it, or are you actively trying to push against it with new work?
I’m aware of it, but I don’t feel boxed in by it. I think what helps is that it’s a sound I love and still feels authentic to me. So it’s not like there’s a completely different genre I’m itching to make but can’t. That being said, I want to keep things fresh and as a creative, I think making something that sounds new is always more exciting. Going into uncharted territory. I think collaborations, especially across genres, can be a way to explore that.
When you think about the future of music in Canada?
I think it looks brighter than ever. Canadians have been dominating the charts lately, and I don’t think that will stop anytime soon. I would love to see more infrastructure for those artists to stay in Canada if they want to. I’ve talked to a lot of Canadian artists who felt like they needed to move to LA to keep moving forward. I haven’t felt the need to leave personally, but I think the next step for Canada is building an environment where artists don’t feel like they have to to compete globally.
Can you share details of the projects you’re working on in 2026?
The honest answer is I don’t know exactly and I’m kind of excited by that. I have a blank canvas right now, which I haven’t had in a while. I’ve been making music without overthinking where it fits, and I want to let that process shape what the next project becomes instead of forcing it too early. I do know I want to bring in some new collaborators and see what comes out.
Ken Casey stuck around after the show in San Diego, California, talking to members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.John Francis Peters for Rolling Stone
Some of the challenge-coin haul.
The band started as a bet. “My band has a show in three weeks,” Casey’s coworker told him in 1996. “I dare you to open for us.”John Francis Peters for Rolling Stone
Dropkick Murphys (from left): Casey, DaRosa, Webster, Kelly, Rheault, Brennan, and Lynch John Francis Peters for Rolling Stone
Casey is largely the voice of the band, but the other members back him up. “We’re so lucky he’s the mouthpiece,” says Brennan, left. John Francis Peters for Rolling Stone
“Only the Irish can take a song about death and destruction, famine, alcoholism, and raise a glass like it’s an anthem,” says Casey. John Francis Peters for Rolling Stone
“Anytime it feels like things are about to plateau for us, something gives us a little bump,” says guitarist Lynch. “It feels exciting. It feels dangerous. It feels like doing something.” John Francis Peters for Rolling Stone
Jay-Z performing at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis in Paris.
Jay-Z Deserves the Super Bowl Halftime Gig
Where’s the love? Jay-Z asked that question 25 years ago, in the chorus of one of many songs in his catalog that still move audiences today. If he performs “Heart of the City” as part of his Super Bowl halftime show next February, those indignant bars are sure to be a highlight: “First the Fat Boys break up, now every day I wake up, somebody got a problem with Hov…” It would be an appropriate choice, too — because then as now, any time Jay-Z notches a new achievement, people find a way to complain.
The jokes and nonsense started almost as soon as the first rumors trickled out that Jay, whose company Roc Nation has executive-produced the Super Bowl halftime show since 2019, might be choosing himself to headline next year’s show. “Jay-Z just Dick Cheney’d himself for the Super Bowl,” Puck‘s Matthew Belloni quipped on X last week, alluding to the time that the late prince of darkness, who’d been asked to run the vice-presidential search committee for George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign, put himself on the ticket. (Super hip and current reference, and not at all apples-and-oranges.) Others pointed to TMZ reports that pop stars like Harry Styles and Justin Bieber had been asked first. “How are they the frontrunners, and he end up in the front?” Cam’Ron, who’s delighted in trolling Jay for many years, wondered aloud on his podcast. “Out of all the people on the roster, they couldn’t pick nobody else?” asked Cam’Ron‘s co-host, Ma$e.
These critiques miss the point, which is that Jay-Z is one of the best choices for a high-profile gig like this. He’s a superstar with a comparable level of name recognition to any other A-lister in music. He has a deep stack of classic songs going back decades. And he’s a highly skillful live performer who knows his way around a stadium stage, as he’s spent this year reminding people on his Jay-Z 30 tour. He tore down Yankee Stadium three nights in a row this summer; just last week, he rocked SoFi Stadium, which happens to be the same place where the 2027 Super Bowl is being held. He held the crowd’s attention with ease at all of those shows, and though there were plenty of glittery guests — that’s a given at a Jay show, and it will surely be true at the Super Bowl, too — he did it mostly through the force of his own magnetic energy. Let’s state the obvious here: Jay-Z is really, really good at rapping. We’re talking about one of the slickest, sharpest talkers in the history of words, someone who made it to the top through a sustained act of myth-making, then kept going. Are we seriously asking whether he can handle a 15-minute televised performance?
And yeah, there’s a touch of self-congratulation in the way he appointed himself. So what? Praising his own gifts is arguably Jay-Z’s greatest talent of all. He made a fine art out of self-applause. He told his story again and again, retracing the steps from Marcy Projects to the corner suite, and he made us believe. It would almost be insulting to the audience if he didn’t give himself the gig at some point.
Pop culture observers in recent years surely remember the backlash to Super Bowl headliners like Kendrick Lamar and Bad Bunny — all of it at least culturally conservative, and much of it frankly just racist. The blowback to Jay’s announcement is mostly coming from other quarters, at least for now (let’s just wait to see what the right-wing swamps make of this one). But it’s disappointing in a different way. Jay-Z has spent his career expounding hip-hop as a mainstream commercial force. He’s not a businessman, he’s a business, man. But he’s also an artist. He’s made huge amounts of money, and gotten himself into the rarefied rooms where he even has the ability to give himself a gig like this, by spinning his experiences into compelling narrative art, one verse at a time. Let’s not lose sight of how impressive his life’s work really is. Jay-Z is not some random C-suite bro, and he’s definitely not Dick Cheney. He’s one of the greatest rappers of all time, by any measure. He’s earned that Super Bowl spot.